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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23136634">soul shines like gold (lets make it shine like the sun)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhirlyBird70/pseuds/WhirlyBird70'>WhirlyBird70</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>let the endless dream guide your restless spirit [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fusion, But with pacific rim elements, Ever - Freeform, Gen, I love them all, and because theres something raw about bearing your soul to summon to implicitly trust them to, and its all platonic!! heck yeah found family!!!!, anyway everyone says the love each other 500 times because they do, reate something bigger and better and freer than your individual parts, that is the deepest thing I will ever write in the tags</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 08:28:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,003</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23136634</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhirlyBird70/pseuds/WhirlyBird70</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>(<i>I can’t become pirate king without my crew!</i> Luffy says, and after three years of sailing (after a day in the presence of their captain), the rest of the crew echoes it in turn. People fuse to become strong, so why can’t they fuse to become <i>free?</i>)</p><p>-</p><p>For Anon who asked <i>Prompt: fusion (like two characters fusing with each other) please?</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akagami no Shanks | Red-Haired Shanks &amp; Monkey D. Luffy, Monkey D. Luffy &amp; Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates, Monkey D. Luffy &amp; Portgas D. Ace &amp; Sabo, Monkey D. Luffy &amp; Roronoa Zoro, Monkey D. Luffy &amp; Usopp &amp; Roronoa Zoro, Portgas D. Ace &amp; Sabo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>let the endless dream guide your restless spirit [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605946</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>345</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>soul shines like gold (lets make it shine like the sun)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>have realized that the tense changes half way through but fuck it, enjoy reading this!! it was fun writing.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Usopp was minding his own business when he came up on the deck of the Merry, giving a hesitant hello to the sleeping figure on deck.</p><p>“Hey Zoro.”</p><p>“Mmph.”</p><p>Wait.</p><p>That wasn’t Zoro.</p><p>Usopp whipped his head around to stare at the sleeping figure on the deck – one he hadn’t seen before, but had a startling familiarity to them.</p><p>Four arms, two sharp-toothed mouths, dark sun spotted skin, a familiar straw hat on the head and swords by the side, gladiator sandals and dark trousers, with an open vest and a green belt.</p><p>Usopp couldn’t see the hair, but he would bet ten belli that it was some dark shade of green and that there was a sloping scar underneath the eye.</p><p>
  <em>Luffy and Zoro fused</em>
</p><p>Fusion was not unheard of, even in the east blue. The weak banding together to fight the strong – now that was a theory the East could agree with. But to do so casually, to simply take a nap and bare your soul to another… that did not happen so leniently.</p><p><em>Fusion - </em> the art of merging with another being so completely that you became one, two (or more) souls creating a body of power and might if done right. The cost being that one will was usually dominant, and thus typically happened only in battle, when the will was to <em>win.</em></p><p>
  <em>Eh. Just another quirk. Better introduce myself.</em>
</p><p>He tapped the fusions foot. “Hey, I’m Us-“</p><p>The head tilted up, revealing four eyes, two closed and two wide open like his captains, a scar sloping beneath it as Usopp had thought. “We know. King’s Sword,” The fusion said in a rumbling raspy voice.</p><p>Usopp hid a flinch.</p><p>There was <em>power</em> in that tone.  And the fusion was still looking at him expectantly.</p><p>“So, uh, when did you first fuse?”</p><p>“First day my parts met. Luffy grabbed onto Zoro and suddenly I was.”</p><p>“That’s <em>it</em>?” Usopp squawked. “Just like that?”</p><p>“Of course. Luffy is the man who will be pirate king – Zoro’s captain. Why wouldn’t he trust him to create me?” King’s Sword said it like it was <em>fact, </em>and Usopp supposed it must be, to them at least.</p><p>Zoro and Luffy were so cool… And the name too.</p><p>(Fusion names were odd. Fusions with children and people who were undecided of goals and such tended to have actual names, a simple merging, but as the parts grew, so did their character, creating a defining name for their fusion. The pattern tended to be for every fusion that wished it but… it was rare, to have it before your twenties.</p><p>Luffy’s trait must be King.</p><p>Usopp wouldn’t expect any less.</p><p>(And Zoro was obviously sword – seriously, the guy used <em>sword</em> as his signature!))</p><p>“Would you like to try?”</p><p>
  <em>Wha-</em>
</p><p>“What?” Usopp’s eyes went wide as King’s Sword stood up and offered him a hand.</p><p>“Would you like to fuse? See what it’s like?”</p><p>They said it in the same tone of voice that Luffy said when he said <em>“Get on. You’re coming with us, aren’t you?</em>” Like it was already fact, despite Usopp having only ever fused with his mother before when practicing fusion dances.</p><p>Doubt fell away.</p><p>“Sure.”  He grabbed King’s Sword’s hand, and pulled himself into the dance.</p><p>Steps forward and back twisting in and out of tandem with the fusion, his hands flying up in down in chopping motions as his hips shifted back in forth. King’s Sword was everywhere he wasn’t, towering and fluid all at once. In one final movement, his hand shifts to be clasped around King’s Sword’s forearm, the fusion doing the same in turn.</p><p>The world grew bright, and Usopp became one with Luffy and Zoro.</p><p>A fifth eye opened, brilliant brown the color of unwavering oak trees.</p><p><em>King’s Sharpsight</em>, they decided their name to be, had been born.</p><p>Hair, long and gently curling fell over shoulders tied by a bandana under a straw hat. A single sword had been replaced by a slingshot, and a backpack lied over their shoulders. Gladiator sandals lied under overalls with a green sash around the middle, and a red vest underneath them. Shoulders were bare and dark, and their face had a longer nose and five eyes. Two mouths still smiled, less sharper than before, with a bigger hint of mischief towards them.</p><p>King’s Sharpsight was slightly smaller than King’s Sword, but just as strong.</p><p>“Wow!” They said, looking at their hands and peering at themselves in the reflection of the galley’s window. “I look great! This is going to be awesome!”</p><p>All five eyes look out at the world as hands fiddled with their own rubbery texture.  “Amazing… Hey! Maybe Nami wants to join!”</p><p>She doesn’t, but she does take the time to talk to them (their first conversation!! Cool!) and show them the canon, which in typical fashion, they aim precisely at the one thing that could cause the most damage.</p><p>A big ol’ rock with two bounty hunters underneath it.</p><p>As the fusion falls apart, Usopp realizes that he doesn’t feel any less or more. He just feels… happy, as if he had gotten to know his friends more than he did already. As if he had gotten to hold their dreams and hopes in a palm, with the upmost trust.</p><p>(Because Luffy did not do anything <em>but</em> trust his nakama. If he asked you to do something, you did it, because anything else would be a betrayal of that trust, even if it would completely okay to <em>him.</em>)</p><p>(Because in a fusion, everything becomes one – bodies, souls, hearts and minds.</p><p>Which meant, <em>memories</em> became one.</p><p>King’s Sharpsight knew of little girls who never grew up to be great swordsman and mothers who died waiting for a man who was never coming home. They knew of brothers dead and living, and grandfathers who didn’t care for impossible dreams and wills. They knew, but didn’t think it was special, because this was just the experiences that shaped <em>them</em>, not anyone else.</p><p>And when they fell apart, the individuals did not remember the memories of <em>before</em> only the familiar comfort of <em>I know.) </em></p><p>Usopp hoped they would fuse again one day, perhaps in battle, to see what they could <em>truly</em> do, when three minds became one.</p><p>(<em>King’s Sight, Weather Sight, Sharpsights, Cook’s Sight, History Sight, Metal Sight, Healing Sight, Music Sight, Sea Sight, King’s Crew</em> – Usopp fused and became <em>one </em>with his crew, and closer and closer and closer until fusing was a way to talk without talking and love without speaking.)</p><p>Usopp, who had never merged before, learned to dance in pattern and <em>fuse, </em>like he belonged.</p><p>(It was a great feeling)</p><p>-</p><p>The first time Luffy fused was with Shanks. Gramps had always told him he was too young for it, as he showed him what it was like with his closest marine companion.</p><p>Shanks had only laughed when Luffy asked him to do it, and swept him up in his arms without question, throwing Luffy into the air and catching him on his shoulders. A warm light overtook them in the midst of Makino’s bar, and then there was Child Captain, standing proud and short and scarred.</p><p>(For Luffy did not know he would be king yet, did not have his dream, and Shanks knew who he was and who Luffy was so he took the lead.)</p><p>(Later, Child Captain would become Straw Hat, the bonding focus between their two parts.)</p><p>Child Captain was rambunctious and unstable, lasting only for a minute, but enough to give Luffy a taste of what it felt like to be not alone for the first time – to have a part of you that would <em>never leave</em>, like everyone else did eventually.</p><p>The next he fused, for Makino had banned Luffy from fusing with anyone else because fusing tired children, was with Ace.</p><p>Accidentally, and in battle, where Luffy’s clumsy movements went in tandem with Ace’s and the outstretched hand for Luffy to rocket with created <em>Brother’s Sun</em> – who quickly went supernova and fell apart the minute they were created.</p><p>Ace didn’t speak to Luffy for the rest of the day. And Luffy didn’t come back to the treehouse that night.</p><p>Sabo was the one to fix it, the only one who had had an explanation of fusion besides Luffy.</p><p>(<em>Sabo, </em>the nobles had said, <em>fusion is for the fighters, for the rough housers, not for people of our esteem. Take note of that, alright boy?</em>)</p><p>“Ace,” Sabo said to his brother. “Fusion just means you – at the very least – care for each other when you do it accidentally like that. And when you do it purposely that means you love each other, right? We’re brothers, aren’t we?”</p><p>(Sabo’s a good liar, but it doesn’t mean what he says isn’t true. In the Grand Line, marines and pirates’ fuse to become stronger, to fight without restraints. It’s not always a thing of love and beauty, but of pain and despair.</p><p>Sabo’s sure that isn’t the case with his brothers though.</p><p><em>Did you know that when men drink together they become brothers? This way our bond can never be broken!)</em> </p><p>“Yeah,” Ace says quietly from where he’s curled at the foot of a true. “Brothers.”</p><p>Sabo decides to take a risk and sticks out his hand. “Come on. Let’s do it, and find Luffy.”</p><p>Ace takes ten seconds to respond. Sabo counted – it had felt more like infinity. “Okay,” is the final quiet response, and they join hands.</p><p>The dance is quick, rushed, but put together in the quiet moments of their fights. Sharp movements flowing with wide arms, a final double handclasp that brings them together chest to chest then –</p><p><em>Warmth</em>.</p><p>And <em>Elder Brother </em>breathes in the jungle air.</p><p>Tall, black stretched blond with glowing freckles and wide eyes, they smile with two mouths and four eyes. Sturdy boots rest upon their feet with shorts and a simple tank top upon their chest, armholes wide to make room for four arms. A fancy jacket is wrapped around their waist, and twin pipes rest upon their back. Goggles hang around their neck, shining in the dim light, and every step is filled with power despite the softness of childhood to their face.</p><p>Elder Brother goes forward, because they aren’t complete, not yet.</p><p>-</p><p>Luffy is found on the cliffsides of Goa, looking out into the distance like he always does when the ocean is in view. The only time that he can stay still.</p><p>“Luffy,” Elder Brother rumbles in a child pitch. Luffy gasps and turns around, not even hesitating to recognize his elder brothers.</p><p>“Ace! Sabo!” He calls, then starts crying. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry-“</p><p>“Elder Brother,” the fusion corrects him gently, “I’m not upset. C’mon.” Four arms open wide, and their young brother wastes no time to lunge into their embrace and <em>fuse. </em></p><p>The sun shines upon the fusion laughing happily in the sea breeze.</p><p><em>ASL</em> they call themselves, like their own dream, their own flag.</p><p>Six armed, four-legged, strong as a monstrous child could be, with a straw hat upon their head and three pipes on their back. Gladiator sandals dig into the earth and simple childish shorts and tanks are slung across ASL’s body. The fancy coat, now tattered and torn, rests upon their shoulders like the captain’s coat they all envision themselves to have in the future.</p><p><em>Together,</em> ASL thinks, <em>as brothers, at last. </em></p><p>They charge for the city, ready to use their new height to buy their way into a free meal, a troublemaker as always.</p><p>-</p><p>The strong did not stand alone – this was a rule the most powerful of the seas knew. Emperors had big crews, some close, others only underlings, and Marine Admirals had countless underlings beneath them.</p><p>There was strength in numbers, yes, but most importantly was the close bonds formed with your closest circle.</p><p>For only with them, could <em>fusion</em> emerge – the dance of souls between each other, so that one being could form.</p><p>A dangerous art, and only for those who could trust (or who had no choice) to be lead along.</p><p>In the place of those once separate bodies would be one – ten times more powerful and ten times more useful, especially in battle, when one’s opponent would outlast you.</p><p>A common tactic in battles was to divide and conquer, so no fusions could form and something resembling equal footing would be allowed. Marines often used this, in favor of fusing as most pirates did, the marines claiming equality and the pirates truly uncaring of rules.</p><p>They were pirates after all.</p><p>Any advantage in a fight</p><p>-</p><p>There are legends, passed down and shifting over time, that the fusion between the King of the Pirates and Dark King Rayleigh was one of the most powerful to walk the earth and only rivaled by that of Garp the Fist and Sengoku The Buddha (and perhaps only because the latter had a devil fruit.) The fusion, called King’s Treasure, had seldom been seen, but was said to tower over giants and kings, to trample islands and swim the ocean as if it were a lake.</p><p>A fusion is, of course, the voice of two wills surging into one. The Will of D and that of a Conquerors could never be a <em>small</em> fusion after all.</p><p>In modern times, when Whitebeard and Roger have fallen (who were said to have fused exactly once, and never again, as Whitebeard rarely fused) fusions were much more visible, striking fear into every soul.</p><p>Big Mom made a habit of fusing with her compatible children, trying to create more creatures to add to her menagerie with her children’s powers. Kaidou’s men were often ordered to fuse, to overcome any odds.  Red Force, the force of the emperor Shanks and any one of his men, could be seen in a smaller state, partying on any given island.</p><p>The last time any Marine Admiral had fused had been at Marineford, when the clash of giants had cause <em>Whitebeard</em> to fuse, springing the giant admiral and pirate fusions to life.</p><p>The Strawhats are a legend now. Or rather, <em>King’s Crew</em>, the Strawhat crew fusion, is a fusion legend (though that isn’t to say the Strawhats don’t make headlines every other week.)</p><p>For every member of a crew to have a bounty is incredibly rare. To have more than five in a (stable) fusion is even rarer. To have the entire crew in one… well, it’s unheard of to say the least.</p><p>When <em>King’s Crew</em> rises from the ashes of the battlefield, gods learn the meaning of the human <em>fear</em>.</p><p>(for when emperors’ wills collide, one must dominate, leading to one will bigger than the other. But when wills become one – when <em>dreams</em> become one – fusions such as King’s Crew occur, shaking the very dirt of the Earth for centuries to come)</p><p>And what a <em>Beautiful</em> fusion they were.</p><p>Unbelievably tall and towering over giants, with rainbow black hair that stretched down to their low back. Seventeen eyes, some closed and some open, the widest being that of their Captains, and not all on the face, scattering across shoulders and necks. In place of one eye was a sloping scar, familiar to all who knew the face of Strawhat.</p><p>A smile, stretching wide across their face, sharp-toothed and half-feral half brilliant. Dimples and freckles decorate cheeks that are slightly too see-through, as if to see bone lying beneath them.  Six arms and four legs extend from their torso, dangerously half metal, fire, and strong muscle. Their feet are clad in black roman sandals as black shorts are slung about their hips, and bracers decorate their clawed hands. A half skirt, made of the Straw Hat flag, ties around their waist with a wide-open slit, while their chest has only an open, printed suit vest covering it, displaying the mass of scars in the center of the chest. Spiraling tattoos of oceans and friends and jolly rogers scatter over arms as the ever-iconic straw-hat rests upon their head.</p><p>Magic seems to surround them. Fire at their feet, rubber in their skin, a demon in their heart, fur running down their back with metal and bone, extra limbs at any moment and a storm trembling overhead. Gentle fish scales slide over shoulders, glinting in the moonlight.</p><p>Demon would be the word for them, if that was able to encompass all that was King’s Crew.</p><p>Another word would be <em>legend.</em></p><p>But the Straw Hat’s prefer just to call it <em>love</em>.</p><p>(A fusion, in its truest sense, is a symbol of a friendship beyond friendship, of a love beyond love. It has been corrupted, to mean power over the weak, for the sea is dangerous to those alone, but those like the Straw Hats, like <em>King’s Treasure</em>, know the truth.</p><p>To fuse is to place your soul in someone else’s hands and trust that they will regard it with nothing but love in turn.</p><p><em>This</em> is why the Straw Hats fuse, and why King’s Crew is nothing but an act of loyalty and devotion to something greater than themselves.</p><p><em>This</em> is fusion.</p><p>Love.)</p><p>King’s Crew, while stable, is bold and daring and rash. They are unhesitating, unwavering, and treat every decision as if fact.</p><p>They will win the battle.</p><p>They will sail to the end of the Grand Line.</p><p>They will become the pirate king (greatest swordsman, great warrior, will map the world, find the All Blue, the True History, an old friend, the cure to any disease, see the ship of dreams to the end of the line, find adventure in a world of hardship.)</p><p>They will do that.</p><p>Because with their <em>crew, </em>there is <em>nothing</em> King’s Crew can’t do.</p><p>(<em>I can’t become pirate king without my crew! </em>Luffy says, and after three years of sailing (after a day in the presence of their captain) the rest of the crew echoes it in turn. People fuse to become strong, so why can’t they fuse to become <em>free?)</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>too tired to write an authors note rn but anyway i love you all and this may become a series because i have time now and i had fun writing this and writing the dances is helping me work on writing action so!!! yea</p><p>anon i hope you enjoyed!!!</p><p>- whirly</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com">my tumblr</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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